Usually the fees for using rented software are very high for typical high value packages. Therefore I´m not a big fan of throwing money at something, which in the end I don´t own.
But in the case of VSL this might really be a nice idea. I don´t know if it is possible to buy just another Vienna Key and get another 30 days again or if the demo modes are only accessible once per user.
Anyway it is a good idea to get the chance of testing the libraries before buying, especially at this price. 99 Euro including a harddisc that´s worth ~70 Euros alone, with all the samples already copied onboard, is absolutely fair.
I only hope that there´s no confusion when running the directory manager to search for new paths of the library. Regarding the keys I don´t expect big problems when keeping the new key seperate from the old one.My plan is not to copy my existing licenses onto the new key. That way it should be easy to seperate full library exploration from working with existing licensed libraries without hurting each other.
Regarding SATA vs USB I think I will go for the SATA version. Would love to just pop it into an USB port, but I think the performance is worse then. Firewire is often shared with or already in use for audio interfaces, so that´s not a good idea either. External SATA could be nice, but the cases or more expensive and many motherboards and PC towers don´t have the eSATA Slot ( why the hell did they go for another connector anyway, the regular SATA is already small enough IMO ? ). So in the end, 3 HDs inside the tower should be the best and cheapest solution, although thermally and silence-wise it´s not a dream. Perhaps the SSDs keep getting cheaper and bigger in the future, then we could outsource at least the boot partition and the VSL sample libraries.
cheers
Holger